"If you two are going to be canoodling then I'm off to bed," said Gerda,stubbing out her cigarette and getting to her feet."Goodnight, dear sister," s...id Helmut."Goodnight, dear brother," she replied. "Try not to tire poor Eva out." As if I would," Helmut whispered in my ear as she left.He slowly slid his hand under my dress and up along my stockinged leguntil he found my penis. I gasped as he started to stroke it."I...I'm not ready yet," I said, suddenly anxious."Do you know when you will be?". I sat down at the table where she had a drink and snacks waiting, thank goodness.We were both in rather similar situations, no kids, husbands who worked too much and stressful jobs. We could always unload on each other. She told me I looked like shit. I laughed and told her there was a reason. I told her all about the previous night and why I had done it.“Damn girl I envy you! I need some of that but I don’t think I have it in me to go through with it. Now that you brought it up, I do have. My coffee was on the low table, inches from my left hand, with steam escaping from the opening in the dome lid. My newspaper, opened to the weekend lifestyle section, was spread before me.I was hit, nearly overwhelmed with two sensations at once. First was disbelief - could it all have been a dream? I was just where I had started and nothing seemed to have changed around me. Paranoid glances over my shoulders didn't reveal anyone looking at me in any strange way, or at all. My face and my skin. Normal cells reproduce by splitting in half. First the DNA helixes uncoil and split, then the cell itself splits in half and each half uses the DNA strand it got to create the missing half of the helix, becoming a complete cell again. Got that? Right. Of course it only works if the split is even enough that both sides get enough of the odds and ends to function as a complete cell. And, that's the whole story, for single celled life forms like bacteria and mitochondria, and even some larger.